Trust state
- Industry term
A trust state is a note on a record saying which checks it has passed for a stated use, along with the evidence, when it was checked, and what is still uncertain.
A label such as “reviewed” says a record passed through a step, without saying which facts someone compared with what. An assistant that goes by the label repeats an unchecked figure as confidently as a checked one, because the record doesn't say which is which.
Where you’ll meet it
Your assistant's notes from a call with your car insurer are marked reviewed, after you checked the policy number against your insurance card. The claim amount, $2,300, came from the call transcript, and nobody confirmed it.
What to do
Tell the assistant the policy number is confirmed against your card and the claim amount isn't, so it records each fact that way. When it later drafts a message to the insurer quoting the amount, it can flag that figure to check against the insurer's letter before you send.
Easy to mix up
| Trust state | Source trail |
|---|---|
| Yes, as checks are added or redone | Rarely, since a fact's origin stays put |
Check yourself
Your assistant is drafting a reply to your landlord and wants to quote what they said about the deposit. It has the landlord's original email, never reviewed, and a summary of that email marked reviewed months ago. Which should it quote from?
Go deeperChecks lapse when the source changes, and some need an expert
A confirmation ties a fact to the version of the source it was checked against. If the insurer sends a corrected letter, the earlier check no longer covers the amount, so a fuller trust state notes the version and lets a check lapse when the source changes.
An amount confirmed closely enough for a household budget may still need the letter itself before it goes into a dispute. Some checks can run automatically, such as matching an account number against a database, while reading what a policy clause means takes someone who knows insurance.